Guide To Electric Car Charge Networks (UK) - What Apps/Cards To Get

hi guys i'm ivm and welcome back now the last time i did a video about the uk charge network i think it was in 2018 uh and back then it was a much fragmented and complicated and all that different ways of accessing the networks there was a bit of a mess really and it needed a long video just to explain to people what you needed to do to access them apps rf id cards things like that but now we're in 2021 and the charger network is very different there are a lot more charge points which is good unfortunately it's still kind of fragmented it's a it's unnecessarily complicated but not as bad as it was things are changing and changing for the better contactless payments for example is a lot more common now at least on rapid charges and so this is effectively the updated version of that video i'm going to give you a list of all the apps and any rf id cards that i would suggest anyone gets so for example if i was saying no my parents if they've just got a full ev and they said what app should we get what rfid card should we always have in the car in the gold box that's basically what i'm giving you here the list of things i think everyone should have i won't mention every single network i'm going to stick to the major nationwide ones there's no point in me telling you about every regional variation will be here all week so i will show you near the nearer the end of the video what you have to do to find out here where the charge points are and what charge point uh network runs them how you access them basically it's very easy it's very straightforward you just need effectively an internet connection and a browser and so we'll do that near the end but for now i'll give you a list of apps and the rfid cards that all ev drivers should have yeah maybe i should just live with that for anyone that is subscribed to the channel if you're not please do but if anyone that is there's going to be a lot of different videos compared to normal because the half a dozen press cars i had on route over the next several weeks of course aren't turning up now given the current situation so uh who knows what you're gonna get right let's start off with this now um i will mention contactless first because some networks just use contactless which is exactly what we want that's how it should be well no that's how it should have been from day one all these charge networks that are proudly going we are now installing uh contactless payments on all our charge points yeah you were told about this over a decade ago and you chose not to and now you're saying like it's a positive that you're installing them no no you just didn't have the foresight to see what everyone else did anywho ramped over i'll try not to veer off to a rant through this video but we are talking about charge networks here so i can't promise that i uh let's mention the the good ones first the ones i would always prioritize the best i would say and the reviews of charge networks across the country kind of bear this out as well is instavault and i would say osprey which used to be called ngini if you're unfamiliar with osprey don't why you they keep on rebranding themselves to charge networks but i don't know who knows yeah instable effectively very good network most reliable one for me and you just basically stick a contactless card on the side and plug in same with the ingenie slash osprey one uh shell as well shell recharge they contactless too although they do have a nap i just stick with contactless and that's effectively what i'm doing here stick with the easiest option if you want get the shell up as well as using contactless but for me well it's kind of unnecessary isn't it now a lot of bp pulse of their network is contactless as well in terms of their rapid charges but not all of them are so ultimately you're still going to need something else and uh i'll come back to bp pulse later on because they have a slightly more complicated setup than others um bear with me it's just one of those videos where it's gonna sound complicated but ultimately it isn't that bad okay right so one thing that you will some things that you'll need in your ev glove box as it were is of course a smartphone you're not going to get very far without one of these whether it's the browser the web browser or an actual app i'll you know tell you that in a second but you will need a smartphone clearly i would also recommend even though you can pay with contactless with these things to always have a debit card a contactless payment debit card with you because not all charge points work with apple or google pay so your phone effectively i think most people probably will but certainly given the current situation and how good these are now a lot of people are going out with just their phones you'll need the debit card potentially as well righty let's get on with the apps themselves so get your phone ready or a pen and paper or something like that these are the ones that i would recommend sticking on your phone ignoring the regional variations i've already mentioned genie point get their wrap ecotricity is the electric highway you will need that as you can only access theirs via the app which is a ridiculous thing and they're all the only charge networks at the service areas which most people call the monopoly and they're the most unreliable network i'm going off on a run again aren't i calm down now yes electric highway app uh the pod point app i will put a link uh sorry a disc i will put something in the description below with this mentioned so you have to you know keep rewinding the video um uh bp pulse app as well go for the bp pulse app although you may not need it because of what i'm going to mention later on and that's it that is all the apps i would go for genie point the electric highway or ecotricity's uh pod point and bp pulse the rest can either be accessed via a web browser on your phone you know you scan a qr code or something or it's contactless there are a couple of caveats to that in rfid card world but i'll get to them again in a second bear with me first i'll mention the bp pulse system because they have two ways of accessing their network a pay-as-you-go away which would be like contactless or via their app because not all of their chargers use contactless uh and they also have a membership so you pay seven pounds 85 per month i believe it is and then you get an rfid card as part of that membership but you can also charge for cheaper so it makes charging cheaper so this is entirely up to you whether you think it's worth you getting be people's membership or not the rfid card makes things simpler it always does genie point have an rfid card option and it only costs you nine pounds i would probably go for that if you're going to use genie point even vaguely um regularly but in terms of bp pulse you have to pay effectively for the rfid card on a monthly basis because it's part of the membership you get cheaper charging so if you do a lot of charging on bp pulse it pays for itself it might even be financially beneficial to become a member if you're only going to use bp pulse less than two or three times a month it's probably worth sticking with just using the app so that's up to you whether or not you think it's worth it or not now on to the rfid cards which is a little bit um more complicated than it needs to be there's only really one that i would suggest you get beyond the bp plus one i've already mentioned and the optional genie point one uh there's two networks one is called charge your car and one is called chargebless scotland basically the same network if you have an rfid card for charge your car it works in scotland if you have a chargeble scotland card it works on the chargeycar network so don't get them both basically you only need one it's 20 pounds for a year for the rfid card and then that gives you access to it and you have to use their rfid card i would not recommend using the online web version for charts by scotland for example and i go to scotland reasonably often because it's just not reliable enough it's as reliable as a politician's guesstimate so i would definitely get the rfid card if you go anywhere near scotland um what i'd suggest is to just get it anyway spend 20 pounds even if you don't think you might use it a charge to your car or charge place scotland because at least for the first 12 months it's there you never know what's going to happen let's face it if you're spending 25 30 40 50 grand on a car 20 pounds not going to make a big deal is it so get the card stick it in your glove box and if after 12 months when it expires you didn't use it just don't renew it but that is the only real rfid card beyond the optional membership if you choose to go to it that i would probably recommend you go for as i said the genie point you can just use their app the rfid card is probably worth doing for nine pounds i think that's a one-off nine pounds as well so again an rfid would be always easier than an app or a web interface oh actually sorry i've missed another one northern ireland have a network called e carne or maybe ecat ni uh i've i've never used them i'll fully admit that and that is via rf id card so i guess if you're going to or you live in northern ireland you're going to need that one a lot of other ones that i haven't mentioned ionity for example all you need is a smartphone you can do it all on the phone using the web browser you scan a qr code sort of thing so you don't need an app you don't need anything anything specific other than a device that can use the internet so that's what a lot of them do as well personally contactless is always my preference i will choose that for ease of use over a cheaper network which is why i would always say that if you're going somewhere and there are two or three options you know you can say well i could use that network of that work network or another network or some you know they're all in close proximity i would go for uh insta vault first over any other and then maybe i'll spray basically if you use this contactless i would always go for that first because it just works then see also the only way we're going to get rid of the networks that refuse to use contactless payment on all their charges if nobody uses them and sometimes you don't have a choice clearly but if nobody uses their networks and uses the other ones that do take contactless then maybe they'll either be forced into it to survive or they'll just disappear so that's what i would suggest now the regional variations for example if you live in london you're gonna want source london which is i believe an rfid card so now we're going to show you how to effectively have a look at what's in your area or an area you're visiting and what you have to do to find out what network that's on and therefore from that you can find out how you access it oh if you're wondering who bp pulsar they used to be called charge master then bp charge master also known as pull or polar instant if i had their customer service record i'd probably rebrand myself every so often to doing it again aren't i now when it comes to finding out what charge points are in your area there are two websites that i would always recommend using uh one is called plug share so plugshare.com my personal preference however is zap map so that is zap hyphen map.com again i'll put all the links in the description below if you're you know so you can go straight to it okay so i'll assume you're not that awful with using the internet so basically go to google and search for zap map and it will come up straight away zap hyphen map.com click on live map on the top left hand corner and you will see this now what you can see here is effectively all the charges and it's uh well there's an awful lot in it so what i want to do is effectively search for where i'm wanting to visit so let me pick the closest place to me skipton that's the nearest town and that will take me to here i'll just zoom out a bit so you can see what i'm saying so here we are in uh north yorkshire and if i zoom in all the purple ones are rapid charges so what i could do if i click on this arrow on the left is basically filter it by connector type so i'm going to click on rapid charges i just want to see rapid charges please okay apply and then what that will do is only show me the rapid charges see they're all purple there you go so that one there that is in morrisons so just click off it and then click on the other one that is in the high street car pack and it tells you there see where it says osprey that is the the network effectively that uh that is using if you click on that page or that part of the page it then gives you more information this tells me that uh the ccs 50 kilowatt uh channel 50 color and type 2 is available it will say it's available for all networks i should point that out it on zap map only has live data for certain networks but basically it tells me what type of connector they've got this one for example is telling me that someone right now is using the chademo connector which a nissan leaf uses for example what i would do then is click on the i down below and that will tell me all i all the information i need tells me where it is for your sat nav if you want to find it what network it uses apple pay oops apple pay you can use the app or zap pay which is something that map have implemented now effectively accepts contactless and credit cards that's all i need to know that's how much they charge and it tells me when it's open what type of place it's in in this case a car park so that that basically gives you all the information you need if you click on the morrisons one and that again it will tell me the speed of the charges type 2 chademo ccs if i click on the i at the bottom again the address it's a genie point one i can use the app or the rfid card if i have it that tells me how much it costs me to use it and a few of the details and also pay attention to the parking because sometimes you do have to pay for packing whilst you're charging so it's worth reading that type of thing another thing which i'm not going to really go into too much detail on this particular video but what you can do with that map if you click on the panel on the left side again so let me just get rid of that filter for a second is click on root planner uh let's imagine i'm going from skipton to i don't know manchester that'll do um and click find root i'm not gonna go into as i said too much detail but effectively i pick which one i want of two options using google maps so i'll pick the one on the left that's orange select and what it will do is give me all of the charges within i think it's a mile or two of that route so if you think i need to charge on route somewhere this will give you all your options there are very you can change it a lot and again i'm not going to go into it on this but that's effectively how you can plan a journey as well or if you're wanting to charge on route so if i wanted to charge there i'd click on that and it would tell me that this bp pulse one is out of service as of five minutes ago so it's definitely worth checking on stuff like this and that's basically it really um so zap map or plug share and that will tell you what the charge point is what network it uses and then once you know what network the charger that you're wanting to use uses you can then find whether you need the app for it if you haven't already got it if it's contactless brilliant you don't need anything you've already got the debit card or the phone yeah that's it we're pretty much done really that's all i would recommend as i said there are regional variations so if you live in london source london makes sense get the rfid card for that and so forth and so forth okay well thank you for watching please do subscribe because i'm going to be doing like an ultimate guide to ev ownership and usage and charging you may already know that if you're watching this after that's gone out um so yeah please do subscribe it does help channels like mine if you've got any questions comments that's what the comment sections are more than happy to answer them it does get busy sometimes so give me a bit of time and if you've got any rants or statements about the state of the charging network feel free to litter the comments section with uh with well we all like a good moon don't we especially me right thanks for watching guys i'll see you soon

Channel: Electric Vehicle Man

Views: 64,856

Keywords: Nissan, Leaf, Electric, Cars, Vehicles, Zoe, Tesla, electric car, electric car charge networks, bppulse, ecotricity, instavolt, geniepoint, uk chargers, uk electric car chargers, uk electric car network, how to charge a car, how to charge an electric car, charging an electric car

Id: cwAZK6j5v5A

Length: 17min 22sec (1042 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021